As we approach the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it
might be useful to see how far an ordinary citizen's knowledge has
progressed one year on. So here, in the way of a summing-up,
based on journalistic documentation, is a list of things we Americans
have learned since last September -- some of which might prove
useful in the run-up to the November elections.

1. We've learned that Bush & Co.'s "war on terrorism" has morphed
from finding and destroying those responsible for the 9/11
mass-murders (15 SAUDIS) to a worldwide campaign to install a
Pax Americana, by force if necessary. In other words,
neo-imperialism, reminiscent in many ways of the old Roman
Empire or, closer to our own time, the British Empire.
2. We've learned that Bush & Co. has no desire to rethink any of its
policies abroad, the same policies that isolate it and that generate
hatred, suspicion and terrorism in so many regions of the globe.
Rather than reconsider its policies, or try to accomplish its ends
through diplomacy and alliances and cultural/economic initiatives, in
its arrogance it continues to bully and threaten others, insult its
European and other allies, disregard international treaties and
courts, engage in unilateral actions without regard to the national
interests of others, and, in general, simply throw its massive weight
around. The prevailing attitude seems to be: We are the one
Superpower, get used to bending to our will.
3. We've learned that Bush's national-security leadership was
alerted months ahead of 9/11 (and, it has admitted, no later than
August 6) that a major air attack from al-Qaida was in the works,
along with the likely targets, but did nothing to try to prevent those
attacks or warn anyone about them. Caught in their own lies, they
blame "the system," especially elements in the FBI, for "not
connecting the dots." More than 3000 Americans died as a result of
this malfeasance.
4. We've learned that plans already were in the works prior to 9/11
for the evisceration of Constitutional guarantees of due process of
law. The White House hustled the so-called USA PATRIOT Act
through a frightened Congress in a patriotic blur, just a few days
after the attacks, with few, if any, of the legislators having had time
to read the final version.
5. We've learned that prior to September 11, the Bush
Administration was negotiating with the Taliban about a pipeline
desired by a U.S.-led energy consortium that would cross through
Afghanistan. When the Taliban balked, the U.S. negotiators told
them they either could accept a "carpet of gold" or face a "carpet of
bombs." The Taliban backed away from the deal and refused to hand
over Osama bin Laden; shortly after the terror attacks of 9/11, the
U.S. began bombing in Afghanistan. The devotion of BUSH to
OIL/GAS/ENERGY/ENRON type agendas are not laudible.
6. We've learned that now with the Taliban having been overthrown,
and a U.S.-friendly regime installed in Kabul, the pipeline project is
back on track, designed to carry energy supplies across Afghanistan
from the Caspian Sea area to near India. Hamid Karzai, the new
leader of Afghanistan, formerly was a consultant on the payroll of
the pipeline folks; likewise, the new U.S. special envoy to
Afghanistan.
7. We've learned that Bush & Co.'s Homeland Security Act includes
programs that bear an amazing resemblance to totalitarian
programs from the fascis/communist end of the spectrum: getting
the military (restricted heretofore to activity outside the U.S.)
involved in domestic policing, signing up neighborhood and block
snoops to work for the central government, investigating what books
citizens are checking out and buying, denouncing those deemed
insufficiently patriotic or suspicious because of their views, etc.
Remind you of Stalin's Russia, Castro's Cuba, Hitler's Third Reich,
the Stasi of East Germany? (There also are prototypes of patriotic
youth leagues being tried out in cities, which could become a
national program.) A kind of martial-law coming to a neighborhood
near you. (Not odd as The Gehlen Org spawned Bush way back
when, in his early OSS days, that is NAZI spies brought here to
work in CIA) Once a Nazi always a Nazi, I guess.
8. We've learned that Ashcroft/Bush are shredding Constitutional
due-process guarantees in their move toward total control: already
they have compromised attorney-client privilege, removed habeus
corpus protections, locked up folks with no charges, secreted
citizens at military installations which puts them out of reach of the
judicial system, violated privacy in rifling through personal
telephone and email communications, etc. etc. When the
ambiguously-worded PATRIOT Act was first brought up, Ashcroft
and Bush told us not to worry, promising that these rules would
affect only non-citizens. Since that time, American citizens have
been handled in similar fashion. Coming to a neighborhood near
you.
9. We've learned much about the dangers of religious
fundamentalism in Islam, but we've also learned about dangers
posed by our own religious fundamentalists -- eager for a Christian
theocratic society, symbolized most recently by a Secret Service
agent scrawling on a Muslim suspect's refrigerator "Islam Is Evil,
Christ Is King" -- and the extraordinary power they wield within the
Bush Administration, represented most openly by John Ashcroft,
who in frame-of-mind resembles a Taliban mullah.
10. We've learned that the FBI, focusing now on foreign terrorists,
doesn't seem energized with the same zeal to catch domestic
terrorists, such as abortion-clinic arsonists -- and especially the
anthrax-dispenser. Though the FBI seems to know that the anthrax
villain probably worked at a government bio-lab, nobody has been
arrested, or even targeted as a prime suspect. (THEY TELL US that
after going thru his trash bin, no powder was found, So all bets AND
THE GUY...are off the hook,) It may not be likely, but the unsaid is
finally being asked: Could this dangerous terrorist actually be
working for the government? HUH? OUR GOV kill a Nat'l Enquirer
reporter who'd written up the BUSH gals as doped up trash?
NAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. The White house Used as a personal
vendetta? C'mon!
11. We've learned that the HardRight of the Republican Party has
taken control -- of the House leadership, of the Supreme Court, of
the White House, of much of the conglomerate-owned media -- and
has demonstrated its willingness to do nearly anything to maintain
that power. (Only the courageous defection of Sen. Jim Jeffords
from GOP ranks is standing in the way of HardRight total control of
all three branches of government.) More and more truly
objectionable HardRight judges are being nominated by Bush in an
e ffort to stack the judiciary for decades to come. This by a man who
lost the election by more than half-a-million votes, coming into his
White House residency, with no popular mandate, only because his
supporters on the Supreme Court installed him there.
12. We've learned that to break the momentum of the HardRight, all
energy for the upcoming November elections (less than 90 days
away, let us not forget) must be expended in electing Democrat
candidates and defeating Republican ones. The objective conditions
are just not ripe yet for anything more than trying to move the
country back toward the middle of the political spectrum. We
progressives more in tune with the Greens (Green candidates are
being supported secretly in many states by the Republicans, to try
to defeat Democrats) will have to wait. The difference between
Democrats and Republicans may seem small to Greens and others,
but, as we've learned in a painful way under Bush&Co., that
difference is immense when it comes to foreign and domestic policy
and its actual effects on real people, here and abroad.
13. We've learned that Cheney is up to his ears in Halliburton
irregularities, and may well be liable for indictment for participating
in financial fraud. In addition, we've learned that Cheney, who was
the head of the task force that came up with a corporate-friendly
rather than a consumer-friendly energy policy, has refused to turn
over to Congress the requested documents that will reveal how that
policy was arrived at and which industry leaders (other than Enron's
Kenny Boy) helped shape it.
14. We've learned that Bush knew in advance, as a member of the
Harken Audit Committee, that Harken Oil was going to release
negative financial news, and he was a true insider, who knew that
his Poppa's war on IRAQ (like the next week), would cancel the
Harken Drilling contracts. Curious George and sold his shares before
that, reaping a fortune. He may be liable for indictment for
insider-trading and other Harken irregularities. (Even if Bush and
Cheney are not indicted, they are the last people on earth who
should be speaking about corruption in the corporate financial world,
as these hypocrites benefitted from that very corrupt system. As did
most of Bush's corporate-derived cabinet.)
15. We've learned that Bush & Co. were mightily opposed to any
reform of corporate financial reporting, but when more and more
companies were caught in such corrupt practices and the mood of
the country shifted -- mainly because so many folks, especially
seniors, lost huge chunks of their pensions and portfolio holdings
when the Stock Market tanked as a result of investors' losing
confidence in the numbers provided by corporations -- they jumped
on the bandwagon and pretended they were reformers all along. In
the background, they are trying to help their corporate supporters
water down, and otherwise get around, the new rules. To that end,
Bush&Co. have appointed Harvey Pitt and Larry Thompson, two
tainted corporate types, to head up the "investigations" of corporate
wrongdoing. Break out the whitewash and let the FOXES paint the
bloody HENHOUSE!
16. We've learned that Bush & Co., having placed its chips on Ariel
Sharon, continues to have no real desire for a just peace in the
Middle East. All it wants is for the area to be quiet and controlled
(thus giving carte blanche to the Israeli Army's police-state
occupation and oppression), so that it can continue its plans for
overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And, of course, there has
been no declaration of a State of War by the Congress, neither
against Afghanistan nor against Iraq, and no real debate about the
wisdom of a war against Saddam -- even when the top brass at the
Pentagon and in Great Britain have expressed their opposition to
such military adventurism.
17. We've learned that there will be no peace now in the Middle East
because the U.S. is not fully engaged in the peace process, also
because neither extreme in the area wants peace: Sharon thrives on
war and brutality, Hamas needs Sharon's bloody policies to justify
its campaign of terror. There are signs that moderate Palestinians
finally are starting to speak out in favor of a peaceful solution, and
there are plenty of land-for-peace Israelis (supported by many
liberal Jews in the U.S.), so the outlines of a peace are out there.
But until the U.S. and U.N. make the commitment to separate the
warring extremists and arrange an equitable treaty both Israel and
the Palestinians can live with -- secure borders for Israel (and an
end to suicide bombing), a viable state for the Palestinians,
abandoning of the settlements by Israel, reparations for Palestinians
who lost their homes and property -- there will be only more
bloodshed. And more fertile ground for new generations of terrorists,
in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Islamic world.
18. We've learned that Bush & Co. has been a total disaster for the
environment, in every way: from reneging on its campaign promise
to cut carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, to backing
away from higher fuel-efficiency in cars (we could cut our
dependence on foreign oil 20% just by increasing fuel efficiency by
5%), to giving breaks to corporate polluters all across the country,
to permitting increased arsenic levels in the water, thumbing nose
at Kyoto conference, etc. etc.
19. We've learned that Secretary of State Colin Powell -- who sees
the world in something other than simplistic black-and-white,
us-versus-them dichotomies -- is a man imprisoned in the Bush
Cabinet, forced to alter his principled opinions in the service of Bush
& Co.'s stupidly aggressive and ultimately self-defeating foreign
policies. Powell, a moderate conservative, looks like a raving
progressive when measured against his masters. He should resign
but probably won't. That would take NIXONIAN shame which he has
none of, having an IQ of 80.
20. We've learned that the tax-cuts provided to the most wealthy
are not only payoffs to the corporate sector that provides support for
Bush & Co. By locking in those tax cuts for ten years (and with
humongous chunks of the budget spent on the "war on terrorism"),
Bush & Co. have ensured that innumerable social programs that aid
the less well-off will be cut or eliminated. In short, a rollback of New
Deal/Great Society programs, so hated by the HardRight. (The
HardRight movement to detach prescription drugs for seniors fr om
the Medicare program, and, especially, to privatize Social Security --
even in the face of recent stock-market disasters -- is part of this
same desire.)
Even after all the above shorthand summaries, no doubt I'm leaving
out lots of Bush & Co. dirt, but this list can provide a starting point,
and a handy compilation of enough low and high crimes and
misdemeanors to warrant their removal from power, either through
the ballot box or by resignation or impeachment.
Finally, as we enter August, we know that one of two things will
happen in the summer-doldrums, with the Congress on vacation:
Either Bush & Co. will start its Iraq war and carry out more
under-the-radar attacks on important American social programs, or
the media, bereft of their usual Beltway stories, will use the down
time to engage in hard-hitting investigative reporting that will
reveal in even more stark relief the machinations of Bush & Co.
illegalities and other scandalous behavior. But, given the corporate
nature of our corporate-owned media, don't count on it. Instead,
we'll probably be flooded with this summer's Condit-like sex
scandal.

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught American politics and
international relations at Western Washington University and San
Diego State University; he was with the San Francisco Chronicle for
nearly 20 years.